A SPECIAL TEAMER BIG HITS HAVE MADE BILL BATES A BIG HIT WITH THE COWBOY FAITHFUL

Dallas safety Bill Bates walks in his sleep. He talks in hissleep. He even tackles in his sleep. "Bill once tackled a chestof drawers in the middle of the night," says his wife, Denise."When I tried to wake him, he literally tackled me." Notsurprisingly, none of Bates's Cowboy teammates will room withhim on the road.

But Bates has never sleepwalked on the gridiron. Thirteen yearsdeep into an NFL career that was not supposed to happen, thetoo-slow, too-light long shot has endured with ferocious,bone-rattling play. "I still get a big thrill out of makingclean hits," he says. "Nothing beats zeroing in on a puntreturner, catching him inside the 10 and putting him down."

Though his duties are now limited to special teams and themiddle linebacker's role in certain nickel packages, Bates'sintensity throttle is always wide open. He'll hit anybody. "Twoyears ago Bill made a great tackle, ran to the sideline andgashed my head by butting it with his helmet," says Dallasspecial teams coach Joe Avezzano. "Bill is the most consistentlyintense player I've been around."

Despite his zeal, Bates's spot on the Cowboy roster has been injeopardy ever since the reign of Hall of Fame coach Tom Landryended in 1989. The 6'1", 210-pound Bates has prolonged his stayin Dallas by exuding a recklessness on coverage units unmatchedby his peers. He has finished first or second on the Cowboys inspecial teams tackles five of the past six years. (The exceptionwas the 1992 season, when he tore the anterior cruciate ligamentin his left knee five games into the schedule.) Going intoMonday night's game against the Eagles, Bates was tied withfullback David Lang for the team lead in special teams tacklesthis year. "Bill is the best special teams player I've everseen," says New England linebacker Steve DeOssie, a formerlong-snapper for the Cowboys and the Giants. "He has moreintensity, more intelligence and more awareness than anyone elseon the field. And he has more athletic ability than he getscredit for."

Cheerful, attentive, absurdly easy to talk to, Bates showsenormous emotional generosity off the field: He's a bigsupporter of the United Way, the March of Dimes and the SpecialOlympics. "Bill does have a dark side," confides Denise. "Hedoesn't put the cap back on the toothpaste. And he dips. I don'tride him too much about it as long as he keeps his spittoon outof the bedroom."

The Bateses met 13 years ago as seniors at Tennessee. "It wasone of those disgusting football player-cheerleaderrelationships," says Denise. The couple married in June 1985,and by the beginning of the '88 season Denise was expecting.Bill remembers accompanying his wife to her obstetrician'soffice. He remembers a sonographer pointing to a screen andannouncing, "There's your baby!" He remembers squeezing Denise'shand and hearing her doctor exclaim, "Well, look at that! Yourbaby has company. It appears to be twins!" And he remembers thedoctor saying, "I now see Baby A and Baby B joined by Baby C!You two are going to have triplets!" Then his memory gets alittle fuzzy.

It's Denise who remembers Bill screaming, "Turn off that machinebefore you find another one in there!" The triplets--Graham,Brianna and Hunter--were born in May '89 (baby brother Tannerarrived on the scene in February 1991, and littlest brotherDillon was born in July).

As the end of his football career approaches, Bates has becomesomething of an entrepreneur. Four years ago Bates purchased a386-acre dude ranch a half hour outside of Dallas in McKinney,Texas. Thousands of Cowboy fans gather there for team peprallies during the playoffs. At the start of the '95 seasonBates opened his own restaurant--the aptly named Bill BatesCowboy Grill--where the menu reads like the Cowboys' playbook.For $6.95 you can start with "linebackers" (jalapenos stuffedwith chicken and jack cheese) or a "souper bowl of soup andsalad." Option plays among the entrees include the $6.95 Batesburger, with the inevitable side order of "goal post fries," and"forward pass-tas" ($9.95 and up). Bates broadcasts his weeklyhourlong radio show for WBAP every Tuesday live from therestaurant.

Bates is marketing a line of speciality condiments--Bates #40Tennessee mud sauce, Bates smoke sauce and Bates Nashville BBQrub, to name a few--to sell in the eatery. Bates's 1994 memoir,Shoot for the Star, is also available for purchase at hisrestaurant. On page 27 you'll meet a certain Hogan Harrison,who coached a 12-year-old Bates in Knoxville's local footballleague. Harrison tried to make an example of young Bill bygrabbing a football and barking, "Let's see if you can tackleme!" Bates writes of the episode, "I tackled him so hard that helanded on his backside and immediately swallowed his chew oftobacco.... Imagine how I must have felt as I got in our car andturned to discover our coach alongside his car, violentlythrowing up."

No one got the better of Bates on the playing field until hissophomore year at Tennessee. In the season opener the No.1-ranked Vols faced Georgia and highly touted freshman tailbackHerschel Walker. Midway through the third quarter, withTennessee leading by a 15-2 margin, Georgia drove to the Vols'16-yard line. On first-and-10 with a blitz coming from the left,Bulldog quarterback Buck Belue slapped the ball into the bellyof Walker, who slanted toward the blitzers and then cut back tothe other side of the field. The 185-pound Bates braced himselfat the five, certain that the 220-pound Walker would try to runaround him. Instead, Walker ran over him for his firstcollegiate touchdown. Georgia went on to win the game, 16-15,and the national title that season.

"At halftime of the NFL game I was watching that Sunday, thenetwork showed footage of me getting flattened by Herschel,"says Bates. Mortified, he called home to announce he was givingup football. "Fortunately, my dad talked me out of quitting," hesays. "That one play did more for me than anything in college. Ibegan to lift weights. I got more dedicated."

Coming out of college, Bates didn't attract much attention fromNFL scouts. He signed a free-agent contract with Dallas in thespring of '83, made the team that season, was selected to thePro Bowl for his special teams play the following year and hasbeen around ever since. Avezzano laughs when he hears somebodycall Bates an overachiever. "How can somebody overachieve for 13years?" says Avezzano. "At some point you have to acknowledge hehad the skill to last that long."

The Cowboys are getting Bates's services wholesale. Salary-capconsiderations have squeezed the special teams captain's pay tothe league minimum in each of the last two seasons. "If yourboss came to you and said he was going to cut your pay by morethan half, would you like it?" Bates asks. "I didn't. But itwould have taken an astronomical sum to get me to leave theCowboys. Besides, my leverage was nil."

Bates loves the game so much that teammates wonder whether hewould pay the Cowboys to let him play. "That's a toughquestion," he says. "A more realistic one would be, If you wonthe lottery and got $40 million, would you still play profootball?"

So, would he?

Bates doesn't blink. "Sure I would."

COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPHS BY BILL FRAKES Bates hopes 13 years with the Cowboys will round up a crowd for his new eatery. [Bill Bates]COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPHS BY BILL FRAKESBill and Denise--at home in '94 with their kids--met as Volunteers and have kept on volunteering. [Bill Bates, Denise Bates, Graham Bates, Brianna Bates, and Hunter Bates]